a li'l of this and a li'l of that

January 23, 2009

If you’ve been on YouTube's Web site recently, you might have noticed that you can now customize your own YouTube homepage! That's right, you can make it so that you get your subscriptions, recommendations and even a friend tracker all on one page. Let’s check it out, shall we?!

To begin, here's an example of a personalized YouTube homepage:

Now, I’ll walk you through the different parts (or modules, as YouTube calls them).

1.) Subscriptions

You can keep track of new videos from the channels you subscribe to. If you have many subscriptions, this feature will be quite useful!

A: This debate comes up often. Sparks continue to fly on both sides of the issue (especially if you don't have a surge protector;-)

I guess I'll give you the thoughts from both camps and let you decide.

Leave it on:

The electronic components within the computer tend to last longer if they aren't constantly cooling off and warming back up. Additionally, you don't get any kind of initial "spike" in power when your machine is first turned on (not a big problem if you have an ATX type motherboard—most newer computers do). Finally, it's much more convenient to just plop down in front of your computer and start working than to sit through a lengthy boot-up.

Turn it off:

Your hard drive may last longer, especially if your computer doesn't put the drive on "standby" after a certain amount of idle time. The constant spinning of your hard drive motor can wear out the internal bearings. I personally don't think this a big deal. Newer hard drives will probably be in good service longer than the computer they live in.

Another "turn it off" argument is that you'll save on your electric bill. Depending on your machine, it uses the same power as one or more 100 watt light bulbs.

Finally, you're going to pull more dust into your computer if it's running all the time. More dust = more heat. More heat = short lived computers, unless you clean it out regularly.

Those are the main reasons both ways. My opinion? I let it run during cialis normal dose the day when I'm using it and shut it off at night.

I don't think it's good for the computer to have someone poking at the power switch constantly. If you're going to use it in the morning and then again in the afternoon, leave it run till you're finished for the day.

I used to leave mine run 24/7, but a few things have changed my mind.

For one, any chip faster than 133Mhz needs a cooling fan to keep it from burning itself into a silicon cinder. These fans are not totally reliable.

If I'm using the computer and am getting signs that I have a CPU that's overheating (your computer will act *really* strange, some will play a little tune through the internal speaker), I can shut things down and get it fixed. If it happens in the middle of the night, I'll have a roasted CPU in the morning.

Another reason is that I've seen power supplies go bad and try to catch themselves (and anything nearby) on fire. Again, not something I want to have happen at 2:00 AM when I'm asleep dreaming about program code.

Finally, anyone who uses Windows knows that it should be re-booted on a daily basis. So, by shutting it off at night and turning it back on it the morning, I automatically get my re-boot (that's not to say you won't have to do the occasional re-boot during the day though with win 9.x type machines or ME).

So, my advice is to run it when you need it, and when you're done for the day, shut it down.

The other day, a reader sent in a question about printing a MS Word document at half the size.

It seems he had a document containing a picture that was frequently printed. Since it didn't have to be full size, he was hoping to easily have Word print two of the same thing on a single page, rotating the duplicate pages to sit side by side in a landscape on the paper so that it still retained its proportions. The thought was that printing two on one page would save on ink and paper.

Is it possible to accomplish that without so much frustration, it drives you crazy?

I'm happy to report the answer is yes, so give this a try!

First, copy and paste to make a second page of the Word document that's a duplicate of the first.

Word will automatically take both pages of the document and print them side by side and in the landscape format on the paper. (In case you're wondering, I tried using two copies with the "2 pages per sheet" setting, but it simply printed the page really small on two pieces of paper. So, yes, to the best of my knowledge, you do need to duplicate the page in the first step).

With some of the new programs you install on your computer from the Internet or through other media types, you may experience some difficulty or permission issues because of the Windows Vista firewall. Luckily though, there's a workaround for it and you can start using it today. Let's see what we've got!

To be able to allow programs through the Vista firewall, follow these directions:

2.) From the Control Panel, select Windows Firewall. You will then see this screen:

3.) Click on “Allow a program through the firewall” and this screen will appear:

4.) From that screen, you can readily check or uncheck the desired programs you'd like to allow through the firewall. Likewise, you can also check the option for whether or not you want to be notified when a new program is blocked by the Vista firewall.

What's a boot disk, you ask? Well, first of all, a boot disk is also often referred to as a bootable disk, so don't think cialis natural they're two different things. Basically, a boot disk is just a disk that a computer can use to boot up or start from. Normally, computers boot up from the internal hard drive, but there are other options, such as a floppy disk, a CD or flash drive as well.

For a boot disk to work, it needs to have an operating system installed on it. The only catch is that the computer must be able to recognize it. It can either be a complete and full copy of the operating system or just have the necessary utilities needed to start up a PC.

So, when would you use a boot disk? Well, they're mostly used when an operating system or a hard drive on a computer won't load properly. That occurs when there are faulty data blocks or any other additional errors on the original disk. You can usually fix the errors by running a disk repair utility or when you reformat your computer. And that's all I have to say about that!